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The position of Social Justice Commissioner was created in 1993 in response to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and HREOC"s National Inquiry into Racist Violence. It was created to ensure an ongoing, national monitoring agency for the human rights of Indigenous peoples.

Megan Mitchell National Children’s Commissioner Children as Citizens Book Launch University of South Australia 8 August 2014 Check Against Delivery Introduction Hello everyone and thank you for having me here. Thank you, Dr Dobson, for the kind introduction. Thank you in particular to Professor Pauline Harris, from the University of South Australia, and Harry Manatakis, Department for Education ...

Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Chair of the Close the Gap Steering Committee for Indigenous Health Equality

I would like to begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to their elders past and present.

When the CWA started in 1923 about 40% of Australians lived in rural communities. Rural Australia was made up of small but functioning communities whose members had to work hard but could make a living from the land.

I follow this custom wherever I go to speak in public. I think recognising Australia ' s indigenous peoples and their prior ownership of this land in this way is more than just good manners. It is an important part of recognising our diversity as a nation.

The Women’s Empowerment Principles Summit

I would like to thank you Councillor Kemmis and your CEO Monica Barone for the invitation to attend this Forum as it gives me an opportunity to discuss the critical role that Local Government can play in ensuring people with disabilities have access to, and are able to contribute to, the social, cultural, economic and political community in which we live.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. Whilst planning this speech, I was thinking that it was a long time since the first time that I addressed an NDS (then Acrod) conference. I was asked to give the Kenneth Jenkins memorial oration at the Acrod conference in the early 80s, as the first President of DPI Australia. The speech then was just the type that you would expect from the head of an advocacy organisation finding its feet, to the conference of the service provision organisation. It was brash, assertive and demanding.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Darug people, the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to elders past and present. I also acknowledge the fine work of the University of Western Sydney, particularly Dr Sev Ozdowski, in putting together this conference. It’s most timely; it concerns a very important national conversation that we should be having right now. I’d ...

Between December 2007 and April 2008 the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma, will deliver a series of key speeches setting out an agenda for change in Indigenous affairs.

My thanks to the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, in particular to Phil Lynch, for inviting me to address this important gathering of human rights advocates and supporters about what I consider vital for the implementation and promotion of human rights in Australia.

For thousands of years, Aboriginal groups, who might spend much of their time living far apart in the expanses of this land, pursuing separately the business of survival, would come together at times to meet, to trade, sometimes to resolve differences, but also to exchange knowledge for mutual benefit.

I would like to begin by paying my respects to the Dharawal people, the traditional owners of the land where we gather today. I am a Gangulu man from Central Queensland. Gangulu country takes in what is known as the Dawson Valley area and extends to just east of the Carnarvon Gorge. So, as is our practice, can I pass on from the Gangulu peoples to the Dharawal peoples our greetings and acknowledgements for your continued resilience and determination to keep your culture alive and thriving over the last 220 years?